I shook my head, a smile playing on my lips. “Gregor was wrong.”
“About what?”
“About my sense of humor; I got it from you.”
Pride made his chest puff out a little. “Damn right, baby girl. Now, put a stop to this drab weather and go get ready.”
Nodding, I slashed the air vertically again, but this time from moss to sky. The raindrops froze before steaming away.
“Amara Wood?” A high-pitched voice carried over the frolicking Pink Sea and through the latticework of the gazebo that stood on the edge of the garden like a lighthouse. “Are you playing with the weather again?”
Iba smiled, and I grinned back.
I peeked through the cage ofdrosasat the deck of my hovering bungalow where Nana Veestood with her hands on her hips.
“You better go before Veroli fords the bridge to yell at me for keeping you away.” Iba’s eyes glinted with humor.
Not many people could give Iba an earful, or call him by his first name, but Nana Vee, who’d raised him before she’d raised me, had that privilege.
“Coming!” I stepped out of the gazebo but paused. “Will you tell Nimabeforedinner?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Iba glanced at the acre of landscaped shrubs and trees upon which he and my mother had built their cozy nest of glass and stone.
When Iba still hadn’t answered, I asked, “Want me to come with you and hold your hand?”
He chuckled. “I promised Gregor I’d wait until dinner to tell her. He wanted Cat to hear the news at the same time as Faith.”
“Fun times ahead.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll be the one with the crooked crown and the half-empty bottle of whiskey welded to his palm.”
“Save me some?”
“Hmm. Aren’t you underage?”
I cocked an eloquent eyebrow. “If I’m old enough to get engaged, then surely I’m old enough to drink, don’t you think?”
He relented with a smile. “Fine. Fine.”
“Amara!” This time my name was accompanied by rhythmic thumps against the wooden bridge.
“Uh-oh. She’s coming for me.”
“Better run.”
I spun around and all but smacked into a cluster of tall, greendaffos. I pressed away their trumpet-faces, then rounded the thick trunk of a mallow tree, its cloud-like violet crown injecting the air with a treacly scent that turned my stomach. Many fae smoked or ate the purple fluff on a regular basis. Not me. And not even because my parents had warned me against drugs, but because the one time I’d tried mallow, I’d been convinced my skin had grayed and fissured.
“Amara Wood, you are very late.” Nana Vee sounded winded, as though she’d paced my bedroom for hours before plodding over the bridge.
“Yes, Amara Wood. You areverylate.” Giya was leaning against the back wall of my bungalow, arms folded in front of a gown made of so many layers of white chiffon she resembled a Glade pearl.
“Dinner’s in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes!” Nana Vee’s red cheeks puffed. “And you aren’t even bathed.”
“I’m sorry. I was talking with Iba.”
Giya’s gray eyes sparked silver in the purple dimness. I could tell she was dying to ask what about but refrained from doing so in front of Nana Vee.
Harrumphing, Veroli cut her eyes to the opposite side of the garden as though ready to march over to my parents’ private rooms and bang on their glass door. If dinner hadn’t been in a half hour, I bet she would’ve done just that. “Your bath must be cold.”
